This blog features observations from Randy Turner, a former teacher, newspaper reporter and editor. Send news items or comments to rturner229@hotmail.com

Friday, April 18, 2008

Globe lagging behind other media outlets on some stories

Two stories the Joplin Globe is treating as startling new information in today's edition are old news to readers of other publications.

The Globe breathlessly "confirmed" that Webb City will no longer hold its traditional "Mining Days" celebration:

Jeanne Newby, the city’s unofficial historian and a member of the Webb City Mining Days committee, confirmed Thursday that the annual Mining Days event, usually staged the last weekend in September, is being discontinued. In its place, the city wants to put on a series of other annual festivals with different themes in the downtown area, including a Route 66 event.

An attempt to reach Lou Gutheil, owner of the historic Bradbury-Bishop Deli and head of the Mining Days committee, for comment Thursday was unsuccessful.

Perhaps it would have been easier for the Globe to pin down this story if it had begun working on it when the announcement was made in the Webb City Sentinel at least three weeks ago. This is not news that had to be confirmed, it is news that was confirmed a long time ago. The only people apparently who did not know about it were the people at the Joplin Globe.

In addition to not reading the Sentinel, apparently Globe editors are also not paying attention to its business news competitors, Joplin Tri-State Business and the Joplin Business Journal. Had they been reading those publications, they would not have treated the bankruptcy of the Swimmin' Hole Water Park in Joplin as if it were breaking news:

A motions hearing in the civil case was scheduled for today in Jasper County Circuit Court, but it was canceled Thursday after the court became aware of the pending bankruptcy petition.

Because bankruptcy proceedings are filed in federal court, they supersede civil actions at the state level.

The business publications listed this bankruptcy quite a while back. This "pending" bankruptcy, as the Globe article calls it, actually was filed Feb. 29, exactly seven weeks ago.

There is no crime in being behind on news stories (though the Globe does have a problem with much news that is not of a breaking nature), but please, do not treat these stories as if they are Joplin Globe scoops.

8 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Had you read any further into the story than the headline, Turner you would have realized that the news element of the story was that the bankruptcy filing postponed the civil hearing. That decision wasn't made until Thursday. Nice "reporting" Randy... What exactly was the "story" in the Biz Journal? Did they do more than list his name in the bankruptcy filings (i.e., include the significance of the filing). Get over the fact that you couldn't hack it as a janitor at the Globe pal.

I recognized the news element. I also am intelligent enough to note that no mention was made of when the bankruptcy was filed. Had the date Feb. 29 been included in the story, that would have raised the question with most intelligent readers, though apparently not the first commenter- why are we just now finding out about it? And yes, it was just a listing, but shouldn't that have been enough to give the Globe the idea that there was a story there or does anyone from the Globe actually read the other publications? For that matter, why doesn't the Globe have someone checking the bankruptcy filings and get them as they occur?

It's not an unusual tactic at the globe, if you get scooped, wait a few weeks until everyone's forgotten, then break the story a second time. Besides, if you ignore it and wait a few weeks, maybe something else will happen and the globe can hijack the story and claim to be covering it. For heaven's sake though, the last thing you want to do when you are the big dog is get caught following one of your little-town competitors, or even following (gasp) a blogger.

This isn't even news. No one really cares about this story and it doesn't sell papers. That is what it is all about. The table scraps are left for the bolggers out there who want to make themselves feel like they are some sort of delusional crusader.

About Me

I am a former teacher in the Joplin and Diamond, Missouri, school districts. Before entering the teaching field, I spent 22 years as a reporter and editor for various Southwest Missouri newspapers. I have published three novels, Small Town News, Devil's Messenger, and No Child Left Alive, and seven non-fiction books, The Turner Report, Newspaper Days, Silver Lining in a Funnel Cloud, Greed, Corruption, and the Joplin Tornado, 5:41: Stories from the Joplin Tornado, Spirit of Hope: The Year After the Joplin Tornado, Scars from the Tornado and Let Teachers Teach.

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